"Refuting Freetardism"

[moeloli]

https://web.archive.org/web/20241211205 ... dism.xhtml
I really like this article, even if it doesn't meet your quality standards. It really speaks the quiet part out loud. Could you restore it to your website in one form or another?

[digdeeper]

Heh. I didn't think people would remember it after all these years. But basically it was too inflammatory even for me. Especially the word freetardism isn't something I'd like to use today, because it might give the impression of supporting proprietary which I don't do at all. I could add the article back to the graves I guess if someone still sees value in it.

Maybe I could even "meet the quality" at some point. I mean, I don't really disagree with the arguments even today, it's just the presentation I'd have to improve.

The article itself, actually, might become very relevant depending on the reaction of the FOSS community to the age verification thing. So I might have to resurrect it anyway.

Edit: one important thing I would add today, that I didn't back then, is the fact that the FSF likes the profit motive and constantly shills for it. They really want FOSS to be sold, support for FOSS be sold, and corporations to trojan horse themselves in, this way. It's absolutely insane but I didn't figure out the problem back then yet. Yet we have several examples now such as Mozilla bribing Linux Mint to include the spyware version of their browser in the distro, Audacity, etc.

[qualia]

"The freedom to run the program [...] without being required to communicate about it with the developer or any other specific entity. " - You mean that, for all those years I've been using Windows programs, I've been required to communicate with some "entities"? That's funny.

Unsolicited requests. Also, for some programs (e.g. popular game engines) if you were to make a commercial product that made a lot of money using the software you would need to deal with the devs of the software (which from the phrasing I'm guessing is more what this is about rather than telemetry).

"The freedom to run the program as you wish means that you are not forbidden or stopped from making it run" - this is easy to violate in the so-called "free software". What prevents me from making a program that can only be run on Wednesdays? Nothing.

Since that program would be in violation of freedom 0 it would be rendered non-free, regardless of what license you publish it by. Also that's clearly a stupid toy example. What this is meant to stop is things like freemium trial versions.

Okay, here is where we start to run into serious problems. First of all, access to the source code is absolutely not a precondition for this. People have been disassembling all kinds of software forever - for example Pokemon games, which have spawned many hacks that improve (or claim to) on these games. No source code required!

Yeah, now good luck disassembling a game protected by DRM software like Denuvo. Or any proprietary program with anti-reverse engineering measures (of which there are tons of because, believe it or not, corporations dislike piracy). The importance of source-availability is that, while not a precondition, it is a guarantee which you don't get with proprietary software.

Windows programs are being redistributed all the time, and probably more people are helped that way than by freetardism.

If I distribute GIMP on my website I am a software distributor. If I distribute Photoshop on my website, I am a criminal because piracy is (in most jurisdictions) illegal. This is about the legality, not the possibility.

So here is where we come to the crux of the issue, it seems. It is the distribution of modifications, that gives real freedom, according to the freetards. But does it actually? Again, you, first of all, need the programming skill to make these modifications - skill that 99% of users don't have. Then there is the issue of your version becoming obsolete by the time you finish your changes - see Freedom 1. And of course, disassembling is still a possibility - you say it's too hard? So is programming for the vast majority of people - again, no advantage for free software to be found.

Again, legality. We've seen AAA game studios forcing mods onto their own platforms, claiming legal ownership of mods etc. People are distributing them anyways but they could get DMCA'd at any time. The "most people don't have the programming skill" thing is ridiculous. This part exists to protect those who do, what's the problem in that?

Of course, releasing the source is not enough for the freetards. You also need to attach a "license" to your program which will allegedly allow others to do everything the "four freedoms" permit. The problem is - nothing prevents anyone from breaking the license. Licenses are just words on the screen - most of us have violated countless video game EULAs for example. More importantly, we also now have proof that the GPL can be revoked - https://slashdot.org/submission/9087542 ... ecinds-gpl (archive). The author of the program in question sent a DMCA request to GitHub (alleging copyright infringement), and they complied in taking it down.

Yes, the developer of a program can change its license but this does not apply backwards (earlier versions are still free) or to forks.

I'll grant you the license-breaking part, corporations are using free code in their products and nobody has enough legal power to do shit. But this doesn't matter from the perspective of a user who wants to decide between using a free or proprietary program.

Freetardism goes deep, and to refute it all I would have to write a book. But I will try to tackle some other common ones:

"You don't need to be a programmer, just pay someone else!" - This does not bypass the issues mentioned in the section refuting Freedom 1. Besides, I can also pay for a disassembly.

Once again, the issue is legality. Sure, I can pay someone to reverse engineer a program but I will likely be unable to distribute any modifications I paid for.

"If the users don't control the program, the program controls the users. With proprietary software, there is always some entity, the developer or “owner” of the program, that controls the program—and through it, exercises power over its users. A nonfree program is a yoke, an instrument of unjust power." - Applies to "free software" just as much, or even more - that depends on the program in question. It is easily possible to make a closed source program that gives enough control to the user that they never even think about modifying the source. On the other hand, the "free software" world is full of crap where you'd have to change half of the code to regain control...might as well just use a good proprietary program then.

"Proprietary software is often malware" - they even have an article with that title (archive), where they mention a bunch of issues with proprietary software. Of course, you can find many examples of so-called "free software" also suffering from those - but freetards gives those a pass, because it's "free". Mozilla Firefox alone fits most of the listed criteria.

Something like Firefox with default settings sucks but this argument is dishonest. Sure, there are some malicious free programs and non-malicious proprietary ones but the average free program will have much less (or none at all) such garbage compared to an average proprietary program. Compare popular proprietary and free software by category (Photoshop vs GIMP, VLC vs itunes, Windows vs Linux) and you'll instantly see the difference.

The freetards' definition of free software simply does not correspond to actual freedom. It is an example of Orwellian newspeak - a software is "free" if it abides by our arbitrarily chosen freedoms, and anything else is dirty and "nonfree" - even though "free software" does not necessarily provide more actual freedom, as shown earlier in the article - and might actually provide less.

Freedom to use the program however you want, to modify and redistribute are hardly "arbitrarily chosen", rather they are very basic and obvious things. You haven't really shown how they don't provide more freedom. Your arguments are focused on the minority of shitty free software, while ignoring the mountains of shitty proprietary software.

It is important to differentiate between open source and freetardism - freetards are doing everything to conflate these two, but we can have the former and throw the harmful ideology away. Maybe then we can recognize (and try to fix) the movement's flaws. Of course releasing the source is great, but that does not necessarily mean the software becomes more secure, more quality, or that the users have more freedom. In fact open source introduces its own set of problems, and freetardism has blinded people from this fact, so it has to go.

If anything, I saw the GNU people denounce the term "open source" as detracting from other aspects of free software. I personally wouldn't mind if software was simply source-available but bound by a EULA (one such program I use is Aseprite). However, it is because of "Stallmanist zealots" that the possibility of making such concessions even exists for me. If "freetards" who pay too much attention to software licensing never existed, we would either be in DRM hell or at the very least, there would be much less software providing user freedom.

First of all - do not bother with big corpo abominations such as Mozilla Firefox or systemd. They support your freedom only in name - actually, they might be even worse than any old closed source software, since they pretend to be otherwise and get you to do the dirty work of fixing bugs while keeping all real control to themselves.

Those suck but are hardly worse than closed source software. If Firefox was proprietary and had an EULA prohibiting modification mitigated browsers like Librewolf or Icecat would not exist.

[qualia]

The only thing I fully agree with in the article is the problem with overly complex software. I'd argue that complexity and dependency hell often renders these programs effectively non-free, in that a person or group without considerable resources cannot reasonably inspect or modify the code even if it's theoretically possible however it's not the kind of thing that should be governed by a software license (imagine if a license said that you need to make your software simple. how would you even legally define that?).

[moeloli]

(Not going to quote everything)

I agree with some of what you're saying, but you seem to have an obsession with legality, like a lot of freetards do. Who cares about faggot laws?

[qualia]

(Not going to quote everything)

I agree with some of what you're saying, but you seem to have an obsession with legality, like a lot of freetards do. Who cares about faggot laws?

I do care about faggot laws because I am subject to these faggot laws. My government at the moment might not give a fuck about software copyright but what if they start? If they wanted an excuse to throw me in prison (which under my local laws they can do for software piracy) then it's as good as any other. You'd have to be retarded to not see the obvious importance of having a legal framework for software that you can share freely.

[digdeeper]

The only thing I fully agree with in the article is the problem with overly complex software. I'd argue that complexity and dependency hell often renders these programs effectively non-free, in that a person or group without considerable resources cannot reasonably inspect or modify the code even if it's theoretically possible however it's not the kind of thing that should be governed by a software license (imagine if a license said that you need to make your software simple. how would you even legally define that?).

You don't agree that they make stretching arguments themselves? Like that source code is a precondition for modification? Of course it's easier to modify open source on average. But that's not what they are saying.

Either way this is why I'm probably not going to resurrect the article in the end. It's clearly low quality and I don't care to improve it. It feels like a waste of time since everyone is going to consider it as shilling proprietary. Whoever thinks FOSS criticism has value can take it from here.

[moeloli]

I do care about faggot laws because I am subject to these faggot laws. My government at the moment might not give a fuck about software copyright but what if they start? If they wanted an excuse to throw me in prison (which under my local laws they can do for software piracy) then it's as good as any other. You'd have to be retarded to not see the obvious importance of having a legal framework for software that you can share freely.

Literally just... don't be tech illiterate and don't get caught? I don't see the big deal. Typing this as I'm seeding hundreds of torrents with copyrighted content.
Seeing modern laws as a big deal and fearing them like a sheep is exactly what (((they))) want, and it goes against the spirit of Dig Deeper.

[qualia]

You don't agree that they make stretching arguments themselves? Like that source code is a precondition for modification? Of course it's easier to modify open source on average. But that's not what they are saying.

If you think about it, not really. "The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.". "As you wish" is the key phrase here. If you do not have full access to the source code you cannot properly inspect or modify everything as you wish, therefore you obviously don't have full freedom.

[qualia]

Seeing modern laws as a big deal and fearing them like a sheep is exactly what (((they))) want, and it goes against the spirit of Dig Deeper.

The most active thread on the Dig Deeper forum is dedicated to discussing how shitty a modern law is.

[moeloli]

If you think about it, not really. "The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.". "As you wish" is the key phrase here. If you do not have full access to the source code you cannot properly inspect or modify everything as you wish, therefore you obviously don't have full freedom.

What about the 99% of users who would hardly understand the source code even if they read it? Including people who can program, if the code is too complex and/or poorly documented.
I don't think they're too free to "study" or modify the program's workings, are they?

The most active thread on the Dig Deeper forum is dedicated to discussing how shitty a modern law is.

...With many posts (including by diggy) encouraging breaking this law, lil' genius.

[qualia]

What about the 99% of users who would hardly understand the source code even if they read it? Including people who can program, if the code is too complex and/or poorly documented.
I don't think they're too free to "study" or modify the program's workings, are they?

I already addressed this argument in my original message. That part exists to protect the freedom of people who can understand code and the only alternative is reducing 1% to 0%. And as I said before, unnecessary complexity being a problem in foss is the only part of the original article I agree with.

The most active thread on the Dig Deeper forum is dedicated to discussing how shitty a modern law is.

...With many posts (including by diggy) encouraging breaking this law, lil' genius.

Ok yeah that reponse was fucking retarded, sorry
Let me put it this way. Would you rather have:
1. A choice between an operating system which does not require age verification and a one that does
2. A choice between cucking to age verification and breaking the law by illegally removing the age verification system

Withour "freetardism" all you're left with is an equivalent of option 2. From your perspective as a user the result might be the same practically (no age verification) but the existence of such a law with no other choice would obviously cause more people to cuck. Same with free software and the ability to legally redistribute. Legality might not matter to you but it does matter on a social scale.

[unbelivable]

Yeah, of course it's worth not getting too caught up in what's legal and what's illegal and falling for it, so to speak. But it would actually be better if the DMCA, the Online Safety Act, Chat Control (whatever happens there) etc. didn't exist.
I don't think qualia's advocating for fearing the law like a sheep. It's worthwhile that at least some group of people does work to make laws better, and especially that opposition to bad law is voiced and heard. So many people look to their laws for a moral compass, especially in domains where they're ignorant (i.e. Gell-Mann Amnesia) and when there's shit clogging up the (legal) system it lets more and more shit catch on and compound the problems.
The above point of mine does speak within a sort of ineffectual framework though (""bad law"" as opposed to all of the other wonderful laws out there) which brings to mind people walking about with placards changing nothing about their society. But, although I love cynicism, I fear to let it eat itself and become more useless than what it's criticizing.
This is kind of off-topic now.

It looks like Diggy senses a mismatch between the Free Software Doctrine and the intuitive solutions to the relevant problems. I also wonder if this is PARTLY because it all seems 'cringe'.

[moeloli]

Let me put it this way. Would you rather have:
1. A choice between an operating system which does not require age verification and a one that does
2. A choice between cucking to age verification and breaking the law by illegally removing the age verification system

Withour "freetardism" all you're left with is an equivalent of option 2. From your perspective as a user the result might be the same practically (no age verification) but the existence of such a law with no other choice would obviously cause more people to cuck. Same with free software and the ability to legally redistribute. Legality might not matter to you but it does matter on a social scale.

Well, I think that at least the OS you use should be open source, since it's the very base of your system, so it's much more important to have potential freedom with it over random programs. And it's not freetardism. Freetardism is saying that any proprietary software (whether OSs or normal programs) is the devil.
However... there will likely be patches for Windows that remove age verification checks (unless Windows 12 will be MacOS-tier locked down, which is likely), considering that Windows gets a lot of unofficial patches despite being proprietary.
And if you use outdated OSs (possibly offline), that's not a problem at all. And Windows is much more suited to be used as an offline/un-updating OS as opposed to Unixes (which sadly are the most viable open source OSs) which are more suited for using online and constantly updating.

[digdeeper]

Hey, since criticism of the FOSS movement came up already, I might as well say something that's been on my mind for weeks now.

Don't you guys think it's strange how the FSF and Stallman haven't said anything about the potential upcoming destruction of the FOSS movement, through the age verification system? They spent so much time complaining about backdoors in proprietary, proprietary malware, and so on. FSF blog still updated and has March updates, including one about Discord, but no mention of age verification. Stallman has time to post about literally everything else happening in the world, but zero mention about age verification. Why they focus so much on proprietary, and not on their movement getting rekt from the inside?

It feels like something or someone is chaining them. Or they just don't care. Either way, sad.

[qualia]

Hey, since criticism of the FOSS movement came up already, I might as well say something that's been on my mind for weeks now.

Don't you guys think it's strange how the FSF and Stallman haven't said anything about the potential upcoming destruction of the FOSS movement, through the age verification system? They spent so much time complaining about backdoors in proprietary, proprietary malware, and so on. FSF blog still updated and has March updates, including one about Discord, but no mention of age verification. Stallman has time to post about literally everything else happening in the world, but zero mention about age verification. Why they focus so much on proprietary, and not on their movement getting rekt from the inside?

It feels like something or someone is chaining them. Or they just don't care. Either way, sad.

Yeah that's bizarre. They have an article about age verification in Discord of all things but not about Linux or any other FOSS operating systems.

[equilibria]

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